Some Polish officials are mulling ways to bail out a large construction company that has been building infrastructure for the government. Critics don’t see the point.

Poland presents itself as one of the few remaining healthy countries in Europe where rules of capitalism are respected. The entrepreneurial spirit in the nation is seen as one of the reasons for Poland’s stellar performance throughout the post-Lehman financial crisis.

Growth will slow from 4.3% in 2011, but the rate of expansion around 3% expected this year will be much higher than in most European countries.

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But construction firms in the country are dropping like flies and Poland’s banking sector, which lent to them, will feel the heat. Builder PBG SA and its units in June filed for bankruptcy protection, saying they were insolvent due to capital-intensive road construction contracts, continued exposure to potential claims related to the construction of Poland’s National Stadium in Warsaw and a delay in negotiations with banks. Several other companies have also sought bankruptcy protection.

The banking sector’s exposure to the construction industry likely reduced banks’ profits in the first half of this year, said Andrzej Jakubiak, head of the Polish financial markets regulator.

Economy Minister Waldemar Pawlak, who is also the leader of the junior government coalition partner, the Peasants Party, floated the idea that a state agency or state-owned BGK could provide bridge financing to Polish construction companies caught in a liquidity crisis. He said the Polish government shouldn’t “look on passively” at the possible uncontrolled bankruptcies of construction and engineering firms.

Echoing a similar view, Treasury Minister Mikolaj Budzanowski said Wednesday Poland’s government may help PBG through its agency that helps provide credit to private companies. The agency could either provide up to 385 million zlotys ($112.39 million) in aid, which would require permission from the European Commission, or it could buy stakes in PBG’s subsidiaries, Mr. Budzanowski said.

But the Polish government is divided over the issue. Poland’s influential budget guardian, Finance Minister Jan Vincent-Rostowski, came out as a defender of the free market. On Wednesday, he said the government shouldn’t come to the aid of construction companies.

“No,” Mr. Rostowski said when asked if the government shouldn’t help building companies. “We have a market economy, companies have been thriving in this market economy, and that’s how we’ve built up our wealth over the past 20 years.”

Poland started its transition from central planning to a market economy in 1989.

According to some, the government’s complicated scheme for cash disbursements to contractors is partially to blame for the construction’s sectors woes. Others say the companies asked for trouble when they voluntarily offered to build at razor-thin margins.

Bankruptcies in the sector are unavoidable because Poland’s construction sector is likely too big considering the government’s plans for lower infrastructure investments in the future, said Peter Attard Montalto, economist at Nomura International.

The government “should allow the natural and orderly shrinking of the industry to still occur and so accept job losses and defaults as a natural occurrence within their market economy,” Mr. Montalto said.

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Emerging Europe Real Time provides sharp analysis and insight into what’s making news in Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on the expertise of our reporters in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Turkey, the site provides an inside track on economics, politics and business in this emerging part of the European continent.